And just then, like the trump of judgment to her, we heard the front door shut, and the first folks to come went marching up the stairs. And at the same minute Amos come in from the shed with the dasher out of the second freezer, and Hettie’s eyes run to him like he was their goal and their home. And then I says:
“Mis’ Fire Chief. Leave your company come in. Serve ’em the food of your house, just like you’ve got it ready. Stay back in the kitchen and don’t go in the parlor and do it all just like you’d planned. And in place of Maria Carpenter and the surprise you’d meant,” says I, “give ’em another surprise. Leave Hettie and Amos be married in your parlor, like they want to be and like all Friendship Village wants to see ’em. Couldn’t nothing be sweeter.”
Mis’ Merriman stared up to me, and set and rocked.
“A weddin’,” she says, “a weddin’ in the parlor where the very last gatherin’ was the funeral of the Chief? It’s sacrilege—sacrilege!” she says, wild.
“Mis’ Merriman,” I says, simple, “what do you reckon this earth is about? What,” says I, “is the purpose the Lord God Most High created it for out of nothing? As near as I can make out,” I told her, “and I’ve give the matter some study, He’s got a purpose hid way deep in His heart, and way deep in the hearts of us all has got to be the same purpose, or we might just as well, and a good sight better, be dead. And a part of that purpose is to keep His world a-going, and that can’t be done, as I see it, by looking back over our shoulders to the dead that’s gone, however dear, and forgetting the living that’s all around us, yearning and thirsting and passioning for their happiness. And a part of His purpose is to put happiness into this world, so’s people can brighten up and hearten out and do the work of the world like He meant ’em to. And you, Mis’ Merriman,” says I, plain, “are a-holding back from both them purposes of God’s, and a-doing your best to set ’em to naught.”
Mis’ Merriman, she looked up kind of dazed from where she was a-sitting. “I ain’t never supposed I was livin’ counter to the Almighty,” she says, some stiff.
“Well,” says I, “none of us supposes that as much as we’d ought to. And my notion, and the notion of most of Friendship Village, it’s just what you’re doing, Mis’ Fire Chief,” says I,—“in some respec’s.”
“Oh, even if I wasn’t, I don’t want to be the laughin’-stock to-day,” says she, weak, and beginning to cry.
“Hettie and Amos,” says I, then, for form’s sake, “if Mis’ Merriman agrees to this, do you agree?”
“Yes! Oh, yes!” says Amos, like the organ and the benediction and the Amen, all rolled into one.